The Far Field (Compact Disc)

Staff Reviews
This book is so beautiful it will leave you speechless. It sweeps you into its world so completely that you take every moment of heartbreak or joy so personally. Sometimes it is so hard to remember this is a debut novel the weaving together of the storylines, the honesty, the characters pulsing with life, all the things left unsaid. The final third is gutting but in the best, most exhilarating way. People are going to love it.
— MaryJanuary 2019 Indie Next List
“Few seasoned novelists — let alone a first-time novelist like Madhuri Vijay — are able to construct scene after scene with compelling interior drama, tension, and forward momentum, but you’ll never want to stop reading as Vijay skillfully combines a personal journey and family mystery with a political examination of the Kashmiri-Indian troubles. Shalini, the narrator of this extraordinary work, has a mother who immediately belongs on any shortlist of literature’s great characters. If I read a better novel in 2019, then 2019 will become my favorite year of the 21st century.”
— Brian Lampkin, Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC
Winter 2019 Reading Group Indie Next List
“The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay is stunning! Shalini, a young woman from Bangalore, is searching for a man from her childhood among the remote Himalayan villages of Kashmir in the hope of learning about her layered and enigmatic mother. Her journey forces her to go face-to-face with the region’s politics while contending with the matters of her heart. Madhuri Vijay’s writing is so evocative and aromatic, I could smell perfume and plumes of smoke in her sentences. I absolutely loved it!”
— Thu Doan, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX